CONSTITUENTS have been urged to tell MSPs how they feel about assisted suicide as a new bill that would legalise the practice was launched in Scotland.

Politicians said the "mood had shifted" since independent MSP Margo MacDonald last tried to persuade Holyrood to give seriously ill patients the option of seeking help to die.

Ms MacDonald said she believed her new, revised proposals, had a chance if MSPs were allowed a "genuinely free vote" by party leaders.

However, Care not Killing - an alliance of organisations against the plan - issued a stark warning outlining their fears about such legislation.

Dr Peter Saunders, campaign director, said: "The right to die can so easily become the duty to die and vulnerable people who are sick, elderly or disabled will inevitably feel pressure, whether real or imagined, to end their lives so as not to be a burden on others."

At the end of 2010 Ms ­MacDonald's first assisted-dying bill was defeated in the Scottish Parliament by 85 votes to 16.

The new bill, launched in­ ­Edinburgh yesterday, is different on a number of fronts. It no longer asks physicians to help a patient to die, instead the individual must be capable of administering their own fatal medication. It also introduces licensed facilitators to oversee a person's final hours.

MSPs from a range of political parties spoke at the launch. Liam McArthur, Liberal Democrat MSP for Orkney, said: "I think the public mood has shifted quite markedly over the past four or five years and I think, while MSPs need to be aware of many things when they are casting a vote, that will permeate through into the debate this time."

Mary Fee, of Scottish Labour, said constituents had already approached her to express their support for the legislation and Jackson Carlaw, health spokesman for the Scottish Conservative Party, said: "My call to the public is to stand up and express their view."

Silvan Luley, a manager of Dignitas - the Swiss organisation used by foreigners who want to end their lives - attended the launch and backed the bill. He said: "It is a complete disgrace that, as a competent adult constantly suffering from an ailment, you have to leave your bed, your home, the place where you live and go to another country in order to have a simple basic human right, to end your suffering. The people who come to us, they do not want to come to us. They want to pass away peacefully at home."

He said research showed it was not people who may be classed as vulnerable or elderly who chose to end their lives in countries where assisted dying is legal, but instead well-educated people who had "self-determined" throughout their lives and wanted a "self-determined" death.

However, in a statement, Dr Stephen Hutchison, a consultant in palliative medicine at the Highland Hospice and a supporter of Care not Killing, accused Ms MacDonald of not knowing how seriously ill patients were looked after.

He said: "As a practising ­palliative care consultant, I am working hard every day to provide the highest standard of care for my patients. Having seen assisted suicide so rigorously debated in the public and parliamentary arenas, and so resoundingly rejected by our parliament on the grounds of public safety, the launch of this new bill once again undermines my work, and the confidence which my patients can have in those who are looking after them at this most fragile and vulnerable stage of their lives.

"Once again Margo MacDonald is revealing how little she really knows about the clinical care of people who are seriously ill. Killing people has always been wrong, and it remains wrong. We can do much better than that in a properly caring society."

Following its submission to the Scottish Parliament the bill will be scrutinised by a committee. A timetable for its progress is yet to be determined.